The "Standard of Ur" from ancient Mesopotamia

31 October 2010

World Fantasy Con: Days 4 and 5

I mentioned in my last post how I met several interesting people at the booksigning. What I forgot to say was that I also sold several books and gave out bookmarks to people who were interested but not ready to commit. So it was a great signing all around.

My one con obligation for Saturday was to read for 5 minutes as part of the 9:30 pm Broad Universe "rapid reading." I read the scene of Like Mayflies in a Stream in which Shamhat the priestess first attempts to turn Enkidu the wild man into a civilized man by introducing him to bread and beer (two essentials of civilization according to Sumerian thinking). That was fun and good practice to talking in front of people. I was excited to meet two fantasy authors—Elaine Isaak and Carol Berg—whose novels I had read in September and enjoyed.

Saturday I was able to go to several panels, all of which were excellent. I think I'll save discussing them for future posts so that I can go into more detail when I'm less tired.

Some people came up to introduce themselves because they recognized my face from Facebook. Unfortunately, I embarrassed myself by not recognizing two people I've talked to many times on FB. It wasn't my fault, though: Their FB pictures were years out of date, and they no longer looked like their pictures. So if you're wondering what picture to put on your social media sites, consider choosing an up-to-date picture that looks like you.

My husband complained that my World Fantasy Con posts have had typos and misspellings. Please forgive any problems you stumble over.

I skipped going to any parties last night because the BU reading got out so late. I figured I would go to the parties tonight. When tonight came, though, it seemed more important to soak up some solitude and pack my bags so I can leave as early as possible tomorrow morning for the drive to my sister's.

This morning I went to a half-hour talk by Mary Robinette Kowal on how to give a reading. I'm not sure why the con scheduled this talk at the end, after everyone but four people had done their readings. It was a useful talk that will help me with future readings. The information from the talk—and more—is at her Website at http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/category/reading-aloud/.

I don't usually go to readings, but Saturday I went to some because I knew the people. Paul Park read from a YA book he's writing based on Dungeons & Dragons as a way of interesting his son in his work. Edge Books had a two-hour reading-with-chocolate. I got there for the second hour, just in time to catch two new friends, Andrew Penn Romine and John Nakamura Remy, reading their zombie erotica stories with remarkable aplomb. The stories are in the newly published Rigor Amortis.

This afternoon I dropped off Clarion friends Heather Albano and Leonard Pung at the airport and then took my niece back to Ohio Wesleyan. OWU is about 40 minutes north of Columbus, and I had a beautiful drive through the countryside, which I hope to write about for my blog post at Novel Spaces on 5 November. Afterward I took a long nap, a perfect end to a con that could have only been more perfect if it had lasted longer.